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Anti-Marcion
Well, if it occurs occasionally in certain portions of it, you will say, then why not in that phrase,[7410] where the resurrection might be spiritually understood? There are several reasons why not. First, what must be the meaning of so many important passages of Holy Scripture, which so obviously attest the resurrection of the body, as to admit not even the appearance of a figurative signification? And, indeed, (since some passages are more obscure than others), it cannot but be right—as we have shown above[7411]—that uncertain statements should be determined by certain ones, and obscure ones by such as are clear and plain; else there is fear that, in the conflict of certainties and uncertainties, of explicitness and obscurity, faith may be shattered, truth endangered, and the Divine Being Himself be branded as inconstant. Then arises the improbability that the very mystery on which our trust wholly rests, on which also our instruction entirely depends, should have the appearance of being ambiguously announced and obscurely propounded, inasmuch as the hope of the resurrection, unless it be clearly set forth on the sides both of punishment and reward, would fail to persuade any to embrace a religion like ours, exposed as it is to public detestation and the imputation of hostility to others. There is no certain work where the remuneration is uncertain. There is no real apprehension when the peril is only doubtful. But both the recompense of reward, and the danger of losing it, depend on the issues of the resurrection. Now, if even those purposes of God against cities, and nations, and kings, which are merely temporal, local, and personal in their character, have been proclaimed so clearly in prophecy, how is it to be supposed that those dispensations of His which are eternal, and of universal concern to the human race, should be void of all real light in themselves? The grander they are, the clearer should be their announcement, in order that their superior greatness might be believed. And I apprehend that God cannot possibly have ascribed to Him either envy, or guile, or inconsistency, or artifice, by help of which evil qualities it is that all schemes of unusual grandeur are litigiously promulgated.
We must after all this turn our attention to those scriptures also which forbid our belief in such a resurrection as is held by your Animalists (for I will not call them Spiritualists),[7412] that it is either to be assumed as taking place now, as soon as men come to the knowledge of the truth, or else that it is accomplished immediately after their departure from this life. Now, forasmuch as the seasons of our entire hope have been fixed in the Holy Scripture, and since we are not permitted to place the accomplishment thereof, as I apprehend, previous to Christ’s coming, our prayers are directed towards[7413] the end of this world, to the passing away thereof at the great day of the Lord—of His wrath and vengeance—the last day, which is hidden (from all), and known to none but the Father, although announced beforehand by signs and wonders, and the dissolution of the elements, and the conflicts of nations. I would turn out the words of the prophets, if the Lord Himself had said nothing (except that prophecies were the Lord’s own word); but it is more to my purpose that He by His own mouth confirms their statement. Being questioned by His disciples when those things were to come to pass which He had just been uttering about the destruction of the temple, He discourses to them first of the order of Jewish events until the overthrow of Jerusalem, and then of such as concerned all nations up to the very end of the world. For after He had declared that “Jerusalem was to be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles should be fulfilled,”[7414]—meaning, of course, those which were to be chosen of God, and gathered in with the remnant of Israel—He then goes on to proclaim, against this world and dispensation (even as Joel had done, and Daniel, and all the prophets with one consent[7415]), that “there should be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars, distress of nations with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring, men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth.”[7416] “For,” says He, “the powers of heaven shall be shaken; and then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds, with power and great glory. And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh.”[7417] He spake of its “drawing nigh,” not of its being present already; and of “those things beginning to come to pass,” not of their having happened: because when they have come to pass, then our redemption shall be at hand, which is said to be approaching up to that time, raising and exciting our minds to what is then the proximate harvest of our hope. He immediately annexes a parable of this in “the trees which are tenderly sprouting into a flower-stalk, and then developing the flower, which is the precursor of the fruit.”[7418] “So likewise ye,” (He adds), “when ye shall see all these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of heaven is nigh at hand.”[7419] “Watch ye, therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all those things, and to stand before the Son of man;”[7420] that is, no doubt, at the resurrection, after all these things have been previously transacted. Therefore, although there is a sprouting in the acknowledgment of all this mystery, yet it is only in the actual presence of the Lord that the flower is developed and the fruit borne. Who is it then, that has aroused the Lord, now at God’s right hand, so unseasonably and with such severity “shake terribly” (as Isaiah[7421] expresses it) “that earth,” which, I suppose, is as yet unshattered? Who has thus early put “Christ’s enemies beneath His feet” (to use the language of David[7422]), making Him more hurried than the Father, whilst every crowd in our popular assemblies is still with shouts consigning “the Christians to the lions?”[7423] Who has yet beheld Jesus descending from heaven in like manner as the apostles saw Him ascend, according to the appointment of the two angels?[7424] Up to the present moment they have not, tribe by tribe, smitten their breasts, looking on Him whom they pierced.[7425] No one has as yet fallen in with Elias;[7426] no one has as yet escaped from Antichrist;[7427] no one has as yet had to bewail the downfall of Babylon.[7428] And is there now anybody who has risen again, except the heretic? He, of course, has already quitted the grave of his own corpse—although he is even now liable to fevers and ulcers; he, too, has already trodden down his enemies—although he has even now to struggle with the powers of the world. And as a matter of course, he is already a king—although he even now owes to Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s.[7429]
The apostle indeed teaches, in his Epistle to the Colossians, that we were once dead, alienated, and enemies to the Lord in our minds, whilst we were living in wicked works;[7430] that we were then buried with Christ in baptism, and also raised again with Him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised Him from the dead.[7431] “And you, (adds he), when ye were dead in sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath He quickened together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses.”[7432] And again: “If ye are dead with Christ from the elements of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances?”[7433] Now, since he makes us spiritually dead—in such a way, however, as to allow that we shall one day have to undergo a bodily death,—so, considering indeed that we have been also raised in a like spiritual sense, he equally allows that we shall further have to undergo a bodily resurrection. In so many words[7434] he says: “Since ye are risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.”[7435] Accordingly, it is in our mind that he shows that we rise (with Christ), since it is by this alone that we are as yet able to reach to heavenly objects. These we should not “seek,” nor “set our affection on,” if we had them already in our possession. He also adds: “For ye are dead”—to your sins, he means, not to yourselves—“and your life is hid with Christ in God.”[7436] Now that life is not yet apprehended which is hidden. In like manner John says: “And it doth not yet appear what we shall be: we know, however, that when He shall be manifest, we shall be like Him.”[7437] We are far indeed from being already what we know not of; we should, of course, be sure to know it if we were already (like Him). It is therefore the contemplation of our blessed hope even in this life by faith (that he speaks of)—not its presence nor its possession, but only its expectation. Concerning this expectation and hope Paul writes to the Galatians: “For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.”[7438] He says “we wait for it,” not we are in possession of it. By the righteousness of God, he means that judgment which we shall have to undergo as the recompense of our deeds. It is in expectation of this for himself that the apostle writes to the Philippians: “If by any means,” says he, “I might attain to the resurrection of the dead. Not as though I had already attained, or were already perfect.”[7439] And yet he had believed, and had known all mysteries, as an elect vessel and the great teacher of the Gentiles; but for all that he goes on to say: “I, however, follow on, if so be I may apprehend that for which I also am apprehended of Christ.”[7440] Nay, more: “Brethren,” (he adds), “I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing (I do), forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of blamelessness,[7441] whereby I may attain it;” meaning the resurrection from the dead in its proper time. Even as he says to the Galatians: “Let us not be weary in well-doing: for in due season we shall reap.”[7442] Similarly, concerning Onesiphorus, does he also write to Timothy: “The Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy in that day;”[7443] unto which day and time he charges Timothy himself “to keep what had been committed to his care, without spot, unrebukable, until the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ: which in His times He shall show, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords,”[7444] speaking of (Him as) God. It is to these same times that Peter in the Acts refers, when he says: “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; and He shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of His holy prophets.”[7445]
The character of these times learn, along with the Thessalonians. For we read: “How ye turned from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus.”[7446] And again: “For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord God, Jesus Christ, at His coming?”[7447] Likewise: “Before God, even our Father, at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, with the whole company of His saints.”[7448] He teaches them that they must “not sorrow concerning them that are asleep,” and at the same time explains to them the times of the resurrection, saying, “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus shall God bring with Him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of our Lord, shall not prevent them that are asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we be ever with the Lord.”[7449] What archangel’s voice, (I wonder), what trump of God is now heard, except it be, forsooth, in the entertainments of the heretics? For, allowing that the word of the gospel may be called “the trump of God,” since it was still calling men, yet they must at that time either be dead as to the body, that they may be able to rise again; and then how are they alive? Or else caught up into the clouds; and how then are they here? “Most miserable,” no doubt, as the apostle declared them, are they “who in this life only” shall be found to have hope:[7450] they will have to be excluded while they are with premature haste seizing that which is promised after this life; erring concerning the truth, no less than Phygellus and Hermogenes.[7451] Hence it is that the Holy Ghost, in His greatness, foreseeing clearly all such interpretations as these, suggests (to the apostle), in this very epistle of his to the Thessalonians, as follows: “But of the times and the seasons, brethren, there is no necessity for my writing unto you. For ye yourselves know perfectly, that the day of the Lord cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, ‘Peace,’ and ‘All things are safe,’ then sudden destruction shall come upon them.”[7452] Again, in the second epistle he addresses them with even greater earnestness: “Now I beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto Him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, nor be troubled, either by spirit, or by word,” that is, the word of false prophets, “or by letter,” that is, the letter of false apostles, “as if from us, as that the day of the Lord is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means. For that day shall not come, unless indeed there first come a falling away,” he means indeed of this present empire, “and that man of sin be revealed,” that is to say, Antichrist, “the son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God or religion; so that he sitteth in the temple of God, affirming that he is God. Remember ye not, that when I was with you, I used to tell you these things? And now ye know what detaineth, that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work; only he who now hinders must hinder, until he be taken out of the way.”[7453] What obstacle is there but the Roman state, the falling away of which, by being scattered into ten kingdoms, shall introduce Antichrist upon (its own ruins)? “And then shall be revealed the wicked one, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming: even him whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish.”[7454]
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